SERIOUS POSITION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 9, 8 December 1937, Page 4

SERIOUS POSITION

SECONDARY INDUSTRIES. DISTURBED CONDITIONS. WELLINGTON, Dec. 8. “Little, if any, new development, has taken place in industry, and even more serious is the outstanding fact that there are hundreds of people unemployed to-day who should be working, but for the excessive impoitation of goods which could easily have been made by our own ■workmen in our own factories,” declared Mr David Henry, Auckland, in his presidential address yesterday at the opening of the annual conference of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation at Wellington, when he expressed disappointment with the policy of the Government toward the manufacturing industries of New Zealand.

“The manufacturer to-day does not expect to secure very high profits from his industry. The fact that competition at home and abroad is so severe precludes him from harbouring such a hope, and, that being so, it is all the more important that he should work under the most stable conditions it is possible to secure. His wages bill must remain as constant as possible, his raw material should fluctuate to the minimum, and his fixed overhead charges must also remain fairly eon stant if the delicate balance of his organisation is not to be thrown out ol gear.

“None of those conditions applies in New Zealand to-day, and that very lack of security introduces into indu-s try disturbances which could very well be done without. Manufacturers are not gamblers seeking quick profits, but by the very nature of things are forced to be prudent business men who have a-t all times to put theii best foot foremost to please their customers on the one hand and at the same time meet fierce, every-day competition.

“Those ideal conditions will probably never be realised, but it is desirable, nevertheless, that as far as possible we should try and secure them In this respect wages and labour conditions play an all-important part, and it is unfortunate that in New Zealand we have not only had a considerable disturbance in those conditions, but we have still to. face suggested in creases in many industries in the neaj future.

“Let me say at once, I do not think we can face them any more than I think we can continue the artificial standards which have been adopted during the last two years,” said Mi Henry. “In putting the matter thus frankly, let me assure you that I am not talking politics, but am viewing this matter as a manufacturer’s problem, and from no other angle. 1 believe that we can pay any standard of wages which the Government set, that we can also work the 40-hour week and still make a profit, but we can do those things only by adopting the same methods which are used to grow fruit out of season—purely artificial means. Such methods will secure artificial results, but I suggest that those results cannot be taken to prove that artificial means are better than natural means at any time.”